Running the country? There's an app for that

A tailored iPad app is being developed for David Cameron and his senior colleagues at a cost of £20,000 so they can instantly access government data, in a project dubbed "Dave's Dashboard".

The prime minister, known to be a fan of Apple's tablet computer, will have at his fingertips statistics on the performance of government departments as well as figures on polling, markets, inflation, crime and other key areas.

"The app is for the prime minister and his ministerial colleagues and senior officials to have somewhere to access data and monitor the performance of government services," a spokesman for Cameron's office said.

"It's about bringing all this data into one place."

The app is in development by the Cabinet Office with no specific timeframe for its completion, the spokesman said.

"It's hoped that it can eventually be developed for wider use," he added.

The app's price tag far eclipses the three most expensive apps available to the public, each of which costs about US$1000, according to PC Magazine.

Cameron has used iPads since 2010, when they were first released, and has spoken about his addiction to playing games on the tablet.

He has previously told the Telegraph that he has completed every level of the game Angry Birds and then turned to playing Fruit Ninja, which calls itself "the most popular fruit-slicing game in the world".